“Then I will not let you see them.” He looked at the jaguar. “Why do you want to come? I have no idea what I will find.”
“It is a powerful vision.”
“Yes.”
“The girl is important.”
“Agreed.”
“That is all.” He stiffened, raised his chin. “That is all.”
The Seer shook his head, turned back to his horse. “Go back to bed.”
“But I need to come.”
“Give me a reason.”
“I owe you no reason.”
“In point of fact, you owe me your life. Either of us could demand reparation for what you have done. Either of us could kill you and be justified under Imperial law.”
The jaguar looked down at the sand and straw floor. The only sound was the snorting of the horses, the squeak of soft leather and the occasional chirrup of a young falcon. He cleared his throat.
“Sixteen years ago, when I first experienced the Sight, hers was the face I saw. She was an infant. I have seen her ever since.”
“Dogs. We should kill them all.” Ursa spat again, turned to tug the girth on her blue roan. It had been with her since KhaBull. It was a fine lean horse but could never replace her silver mare.
“That is all.” The jaguar shrugged. “Truly all.”
Sireth glanced at the boy. “Rodriego, might I trouble you for another horse?”
“Of course, sidi. Certainly, sidi.” And he disappeared into the stalls once again.
“The pack horses are ready, brother,” said Tiberius, his wide hands hidden in his sleeves. “I wish you all journeying mercies.”
Sireth smiled. “We will need them. I am sorry for leaving so quickly after we have just returned.”
“It is the way of things.”
“Indeed. Begin to rebuild, Tiberius. There is a dark day coming and our skills will be sorely needed.”
The lynx bowed as Rodriego led a sixth horse into the light, passed it into Nevye’s waiting hand.
Ursa leaned into him as she moved her horse past. “We will be coming to Nanchuri Glacier sooner than expected…Poor little chicken…”
Sireth benAramis merely smiled as together the three of them led their horses out into the first red streaks of dawn.
***
he is bound by the wrists to the stumps of trees and they have beaten him so he cannot stand, blood running down his face, he can barely see the blades on a flap of deerskin, so many blades and they laugh and he can smell the drink on their breath as they reach for his hand
He opened his eyes.
There was a shape silhouetted outside the rice paper walls.
Ling was asleep, her dark body all but hidden in the shadows of the pillows. Slowly, quietly, he rolled to his knees, reaching for the tanto that he kept strapped to his ankle and moved under the darkness toward the door.
The shape was moving tentatively, bobbing and swaying as if unsure and Kirin frowned. It was impossible to guess the size of the intruder, as the only light was from the candles flickering outside the Prayer Room. He remembered how shockingly easy it was to move in and out of this level of the Palace and reached a hand to the sliding doors, heart thudding only once before growing still and steady inside his chest.
With a swift motion, he rose to his feet and slid the doors apart, bringing the tanto up to the throat of the figure.
It was a servant girl, the young sandcat, and she gasped in surprise and dropped to her knees, forehead touching the floor.
“Forgive, forgive,” she cried and he straightened, releasing his breath. Behind him, Ling stirred and sat up.
“Farallah?” she asked and pulled a slip of silk to her chest. “What is the disturbance?”
“Forgive, please forgive!”
Kirin frowned. It was the maid girl from the Residence.
“Why are you here?”
“The Chancellor has called a council, Most Revered Excellency.” The girl did not move her forehead from the floor. “There has been a falcon from the Wall. Please forgive.”
“Yes,” said the Empress. “Of course. Let him know that the Shogun-General and I will both attend immediately. Have Lei-lani set out the Indigo Sunrise.”
“Excellency.”
“With the Star of Dragons headpiece. Go now.”
“A thousand blessings,” said the caracal, and she dared lift her eyes for the briefest of moments to the golden figure towering over her.
She very quickly averted her gaze.
“Blast,” growled Kirin and he slid the doors shut.
When he turned back, Ling was grinning at him.
“I’m certain she will be discreet, my Kirin-san. Women can be trusted with such intimacies.”
He narrowed his eyes at her and reached for his clothing, remembering a silhouette of Kerris and two dancers at the Yellow Scorpion behind a rice paper screen.
“I have spent the last two years in the company of three very remarkable women,” he said as he stepped into his boots. “And I have come to believe nothing of the sort.”
She smiled.
“And I am not Shogun-General. Not yet.”
“You will be.”
“We are dancing on the edge of a very sharp blade. It is dangerous.”
“Life is dangerous.”
“Not like this.”
“I will have my songs, Kirin-san.”
He shook his head once again and as he began to fasten the clasps of the red shervanah coat, he wondered if the time for singing had finally come to an end.
Shogun-General
Far below them, the fires and lanterns of Ulaan Baator flickered as the city slept at their feet. Here, so high on the mesa top of Khazien, Mountain of the Khans, the valley looked as if it stretched on forever. He could see the silver serpent that was the River Thuul, the white flatness that was the Salt Plains, the cresting dunes that were the very edge of Gobay. Here, on Khazien, Irh-Khan Swift Sumalbayar was sure he could see the whole world.
He could hear the moaning of the Oracle in the Khargan’s tent and decided to spend a little more time out in the cold night air. His breath was smoke as he walked so he tugged the bearskin higher onto his shoulders. He was a tall man, taller than many of his brothers. Taller than the Khargan even and that was saying much. But the Khargan was broader, built more like a bear, his chest the size of two men, his arms the breadth of three. Yes, he was the size and shape of a bear. So in their youth, Swift had called him Bear. Everyone else called him Khan.
Khan Baitsuhkhan, First Khan of Khans, the Khargan. Son of the White Wolf, Father of the Jackal. Ruler of the Chanyu, All the Peoples of the Earth.
No one remembered his name, the name he had been given at birth. It had been changed so many times as his kills mounted and his power grew. But Swift Sumalbayar, called Long-Swift by the Khan, had grown up with him. They had killed together. They had found wives together. They had run many campaigns together. They had been as brothers.
Wives had come and wives had gone. Brothers remained forever.
Still, he missed his wife.
He sighed. There were many tents set up now as he walked around the flat top of Khazien, gars and yurts and skins slung from stumps. It had been a year of gathering after the fall of the Star, as the Chanyu prepared for war. On the far side of the mountain, the army waited. They were ten thousand and growing and the training fields were flattened like the tundra under their boots. He toured their ranks daily as Irh-Khan, Sekond or High Beta, and he was proud of the spirit of the troops. They would take on the Enemy with relish, bring down their Empire and their unmerited pride. No, he wasn’t worried about the troops. It was the killing of the Oracles that disturbed him.
He filled his lungs, feeling the bitter wind bite the back of his throat and the tips of his ears. Not for the first time he wished he had cropped them years ago like the other soldiers. They were bitten with frost now, penance for a lifetime of vanity.
He shook his head, steeling his nerve fo
r his return to the Khargan’s tent. It glowed with lantern light from the seams. As he approached, the door flapped open and the Khan himself stepped out, wiping his hands on a bloodied doeskin.
His hair was the colour of iron and fell past his face. Woven into it were strands of lion gold and around his neck, rings of many claws.
“He has nothing,” Khan Baitsuhkhan growled, tossing the skin into the snow. “Kill him for me and let the crows pick his bones.”
“The crows are growing fat this month.”
“Let them.” The big man spat on the ground. “They are more useful than a thousand Oracles.”
Long-Swift nodded once. “Lord.”
“Lord?” The Khargan looked up quickly, small eyes shining. “There was a time when I was Bear to you. Since when do you call me Lord?”
Long-Swift shrugged. “There are many soldiers. Respect is a pearl of great price.”
The Khan studied him a moment before nodding. “True enough. You will be Khan soon.”
“Only if we find lions.”
“Oh, we will find lions. Lions enough to make a hundred Khans.”
“That would be problematic,” Long-Swift grinned. “Where would we all find wives?”
The Khargan laughed and dropped a hand on his shoulder.
“Kill the Oracle. Like wives, there are always more.”
And he pushed past, leaving the Irh-Khan standing before the flap of a doorway.
He peered in.
The Oracle was as old as he had ever seen, perhaps sixty. Almost hairless. His eyes and teeth were gone and his bones stuck out at wrong angles. Killing him would be almost a blessing.
He slipped in to do the Khan’s bidding.
***
The sound of raised voices could be heard from a long way down the corridor and Kirin was satisfied to see the Leopard Guard lining the walls, swords at hips, staffs in hand. He himself followed several paces behind the entourage of women and there was the expected hush as the great gold door swung open into the presence of Chancellor Ho and the council of Ministers.
The Ministers dropped to their knees, foreheads to the cool mosaic floor. All save the Chancellor, who merely bowed in his peculiar way, seeming to force his eyes from the sight of the lion in the company of the Empress. In fact, Kirin was acutely aware of the tension in the room and wondered how much was because of him and how much because of the falcon from the Wall.
There was no sound—only the hiss of oil burning in the lamps and the room glowed with warmth but no sunlight. She kept them down longer than usual, perhaps to remind them that even with such a consort, she was still, in fact, Empress.
“Rise,” she said finally. “There is a falcon?”
“That is not all, Excellency,” said Chancellor Ho. “Orange and white alarm fires have been struck.”
Kirin felt the world lurch under his feet. Orange and white. Dogs and monkeys. Such a thing had never happened. In his mind, he could hear the sound of drums. It would be a hard night for every man on the Wall tonight.
“The falcon,” repeated the Empress. She revealed nothing in her voice. She was as regal as the Mountains and just as strong.
Chancellor Ho swept a hand toward an alcove near a high window and she moved through the room like water, the women slipping back out the way they had come. Almost as smooth as leopards, Kirin thought grimly. He wondered if any were trained to kill.
The falcon was rugged, larger than Mi-Hahn and less sleek than Path. It wore the hood and talon leathers of its profession but no bells. It was an Army bird. It would as likely bite a cat as serve one and it stretched wide its wings as the Imperial party drew near. Ling reached out a hand, only the tips of her black fingers visible through the silks, stroked the creature’s speckled breast. It hissed but did not strike.
“From the Wall?” she asked and the Minister of the Wall stepped forward.
“From the Gate of Five Hands,” he said. He was a tiger, unusual for such a common man to have attained such a rank and therefore impressive. Kirin knew never to underestimate the tenacity of tigers.
“Five Hands? The Chi’Chen Gate?”
“The very one, Excellency. It is only two days’ ride.”
“Do you have the parchment?”
“Excellency,” said Chancellor Ho. “These are important matters of state. Perhaps we could ask Kirin-san to wait outside. With the women.”
Her golden eyes flashed.
“The Shogun-General is privy to all matters of state.”
“Alas,” said Ho. “There is no Shogun-General. Not yet.”
“It does not require an act of state when the rank is forged in a time of war,” she said, keeping her voice even. “Is that not true, Master Soeng?”
A thin pale man of Sacred blood stepped forward and Kirin recognized him as the Minister of Archives. He looked like a slip of paper.
“Most Revered Excellency, may you live forever. You are, of course, quite correct. According to the Archives, the very last Shogun-General of the Upper Kingdom was created to honour General Yasouf Kingston-benMazar under Empress Faisala the Wise. He killed the seventh Khan of the Lower Kingdom in the Battle of the Weikhan Valley and was accorded the title with no opposition from the ruling council.”
Ling turned her heavy-lidded eyes on the Chancellor.
“I am not Empress Faisala the Wise and, of course, desire unanimous approval from my council. Captain Wynegarde-Grey has yet to give us his report on his journey in the Year of the Tiger, including the establishment of a new Khan, the death of six of my Seers, not to mention the role of Jet barraDunne and the fall of Sha’Hadin. There may be government officials that bear responsibility for crimes against our Kingdom. Surely you will allow him some leniency, Chancellor? Careers could be shattered on one word from his mouth.”
Kirin’s heart was thudding as if he would surely die. With alarm fires racing across the Kingdom, she was playing a dangerous game with the Chancellor and Ho was a dangerous man. His wide face split wider and he bowed most formally.
“But of course, Excellency. It would be disrespectful of me to presume anything other than righteous motives on behalf of our good Captain and soon-to-be Shogun-General. I withdraw my protest.”
She cast her eyes around the Throne Room.
“Are we all in accord? Alarm fires have been struck and I would like to hear the scroll read. When did it arrive?”
“At the commencement of the second watch, Excellency.”
Kirin grit his teeth. It seemed all manner of bad things happened in the second watch.
And yet another minister stepped forward. Minister of Falcons, Kirin knew. He was a serval and the tips of his ears rose high above his head. Carefully, he unfolded a very small slip of parchment and began to read.
“Division of Chi’Chen army amassed Five Hands Gate. Monkeys number two thousand. Ambassador Bo Fujihara diplomatic envoy requests Imperial counsel. Kaidan with him.”
There was silence for barely a heartbeat before the room began to buzz with comments. Chi’Chen Army. Five Hands Gate. Two thousand men. Not allowed through. Act of war. But for Kirin, there was only one word that registered, one that shook him to his very bones.
“Kaidan?”
“But why the orange fire,” asked the Minister of Arms. “Orange is for dogs.”
“Perhaps someone should be reminded?”
“Perhaps someone should be executed.”
“Kaidan?” Kirin asked again. “Kaidan is with them?”
“Apparently so,” said the serval before turning to the Minister of Diplomatic Affairs.
“But that is impossible.”
No one was listening. They were arguing amongst themselves.
“It is impossible.”
“The Chi’Chen would not dare.”
“Ambassador Fujihara grows as bold as his tobacco.”
“Kaidan?” he asked again.
The Empress turned to him.
“Kirin-san? What of Kaidan?”
/> He released a deep, cleansing breath and then another. His head was spinning. How could this be?
“Kirin-san,” she said again. “I am the only one in the room. Tell me.”
He nodded, drawing strength from her great golden eyes. “He went west, west in a ship with Solomon. They were looking for others. There is no way he could now be east with an army.”
“That was almost a year ago.”
“It makes no sense.”
Quietly, she laid a hand on his sleeve.
“Solomon. You told me this. This is the name of the Ancestor, yes?”
“Ancestor?” said Chancellor Ho, and suddenly, all conversation in the room ceased.
“They were all dead in Swisserland,” Kirin said. “But he thought there might be more in a place called Kanadah. It sounded like a very far place. A world away, Solomon said.”
“Ancestor?” said the Minister of Defense.
“Do you know if they found others?” asked Ling.
He shook his head. “But if they did and Kerris is back with an army, then I can only assume it’s a bad thing.”
“There are no Ancestors,” said the Minister of Archives.
“Oh, most certainly none,” said the Minister of the Wall.
“Yes,” said Kirin. “There are.”
All the ministers were silent now and staring, as talk had suddenly moved quite beyond their experience.
With a gust of cold air, the great red and gold door swung open and a small figure rushed into the room. It was a boy of perhaps fourteen summers, a courier wearing the uniform of the Ministry of Falcons and as such, was allowed free access to all parts of the Palace. He jingled as dropped to his knees and held up a set of talon bells.
“Forgive, please forgive!” he cried. “There is a second falcon!”
“From where?” asked the Chancellor.
“The Wall, Magnificence. North of the foundry of Shen’foxhindi.”
“North?” said the Minister of Defense. “The Chi’Chen will not be coming from the north.”
“No,” said the Minister of the Wall. “That would be dogs.”
“The orange fire,” said the Minister of Diplomatic Affairs.
The Way of Things: Upper Kingdom Boxed Set: Books 1, 2 and 3 in the Tails of the Upper Kingdom Page 81
